The Truest of Loves
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: There is no shame in being small or in love. Slash. SOFT R/M.


He didn't know who he was that first night when he awoke in the museum to find the world not as he remembered it. Rome was supposed to be endless, and yet his territory had been limited to a single space of wooden board. A few steps, which felt more like several miles to his tiny feet, carried him into the enemy's territory. He started off that very night fighting to expand his kingdom, but still he didn't know who, or what, he was. That realization did not come until much later.

He was supposed to be a leader, a Roman General, but a mere human guard was a Giant in comparison to his teeny stature. He was supposed to be brave and fear nothing, but he quickly learned that there was a great deal to fear, beginning with the removal of the tablet that brought him, and the others, to life. He wasn't even supposed to be alive. He wasn't the real Octavius. And yet, because of that tablet, he lived and breathed in a world his namesake would never see. He existed and held every one of the real Octavius' memories as though they were his own.

He was not Octavius, though, no matter how many of his thoughts and memories had originally been the Roman's. He was not made of flesh and blood but of wax. He was not a man . . . Yet he loved and felt just as true and as strong as Octavius or any other real man who had come before him. He discovered the first night Larry Daley took over the guardianship of the museum who and what he was.

He found himself in the snow, in a blizzard the likes of which he had never seen or imagined. He found himself with the man whom he'd thought to be his enemy. He found himself in Jedediah's blue eyes and discovered then that it didn't matter if he was small or rather or not he was the real Octavius. He loved Jedediah, and that love was returned. It was that love that got them through that storm, and it is that love that has carried them ever since.

All these thoughts and more pass through Octavius' mind as he holds Jedediah's body close to his own this night. It doesn't matter that Jed's heart doesn't beat. It doesn't matter that he's made of wax or that the naked skin pressing against his own is not made of real flesh. He could love him no less, regardless of rather he was made of wax or flesh, six inches tall or six hundred feet, but he feels the tenseness in his hot, little body and knows him to be troubled.

Octavius leans up against his lover and presses a gentle kiss to the spot just beneath his ear lobe. "What troubles you, my love?"

"Oh, you know . . . " Jed rolls his muscular shoulders as he tries to put off the seriousness of his thoughts. " . . . jest thinkin' 'bout th' usual, partner."

Octavius runs a hand up his chest, brings his palm to rest over the place where Jedediah's heart would beat if he had one, and caresses him with his long, dark fingers. "And the usual would be?" he prompts softly. If Jedediah does not truly wish him to know what ails him, he knows he will tell him. Should they arrive at that point, Octavius will leave him alone, but only once he knows Jed truly wishes to not discuss it.

Jedediah lets out a blow of hot air from his lips. "I'm tired o' bein' small. Jefferson got outta the diorama today while th' museum was still open an' almost got his butt stepped on."

Octavius makes a face. It goes unspoken between them that, had the human's foot actually connected with Jefferson, Jedediah's friend would have been broken instantly and quite possibly even killed. "He knew the risks."

"Yeah. I told him he was stupid."

"That is not all that ails you," Octavius remarks. His fingers run up underneath Jed's chin and along his throat.

"No," the shaggy-haired blonde admits. "I ain't really bothered, Octie. Just thinkin'."

"Would you like to share your thoughts?"

Jed turns in his arms and faces him at last. Their eyes lock. There's a misty sparkle in Jedediah's blue eyes; Octavius knows at once that he, like himself, has been remembering. "We been through an awful lot, partner."

"We have." It's funny, but Octavius can hear a distant pounding coming from the cavemen's display. He knows they must have found something to bang on yet again, but for tonight, or at least for this single moment in time, the pounding he hears makes him think of a heartbeat, a heartbeat made frantic with nervousness and perhaps just a little fear. "Jed?" he asks cautiously.

"We been through a lot," the cowboy repeats. "Stoppin' those guards from stealin' th' tablet, figurin' out we ain't who we always thought we were, survivin' that blizzard an' that whole thing wit' Kahmunrah, that hourglass . . . " Octavius feels a trembling shiver pass through his love's body at the memory of being trapped in that vial of sand; he holds him closer.

"We survived."

"We did," Jed nods, "an' there's been good times too. You showin' up t' th' rescue on that squirrel, ridin' together, fightin' together, flyin' together. We spend a lot o' time together."

"You are not complaining?" Octavius' eyes search Jed's curiously.

"Heck no!" the blonde quickly retorts. "I'm just sayin'," he says with a shrug, "we spend a lot o' time together." Their eyes lock again. "My best times are with you, Octavius."

"As mine are with you."

"An' what we shared tonight, what we been sharin' when we get away from all th' others . . . . "

A slow but blistering heat crawls up Octavius' neck to fill his face and turn it a shade darker. This conversation is going exactly where he feared. The pounding from the cavemen's attempt to make music quickens. Octavius looks away, but Jed's imploring eyes bring him back to stare into them again. He can not deny the pull the other man has on him nor the truthfulness of his words both spoken and unspoken.

There is no shame in being who they are, even if they are the smallest beings in this museum and quite possibly the smallest men in all the world. There is no shame in being what they are, mannequins rather than the real men whom they had once thought themselves to be. But is there shame in what they have found here, together? Is there shame in the heated kisses they share when no one is looking or in the thrills that shoot through them when they touch, rather it's just to shake hands or to bump chests?

He remembers the real Octavius' time as vividly as if he had truly lived his life. He knows men have been slain for less. He knows loving a man was considered an offense worthy of death. He knows he would have been killed for loving Jedediah then, just as Jed would have been hanged in his own time. He knows that little fact, because he asked Teddy once about the perils of loving a man.

He had not meant to question the "President" or to let him come so close to the truth he had not even admitted to himself at the time, but Teddy, regardless of rather he was the true, former Roughrider Theodore Roosevelt or himself, just a mannequin as they all were, seemed to possess the uncanny knack for being able to see straight into a person's heart, or whatever it was they had that passed for hearts. He had known Octavius had feelings for Jedediah just as surely as he himself had fallen for Sacajawea. He had known and not held it against either man but had voiced his concern over their relationship. His concern had not been that they would hurt one another but rather that their people might try to harm them if they discovered the truth for in Octavius' time they would have been sent to the gallows and, in Jedediah's, to the hangman's noose. Octavius lifts his left hand from Jed's bare naked calf and runs his fingers against his own throat. He'd rather like to keep his head.

"Jed," he tries to speak and refuses to admit his embarrassment over the way his voice slightly shakes. "Perhaps this is not the best time - ?"

"Then when?" Jedediah blusters. "When we gonna talk about it, huh, Octie? We can't talk about it 'round your people or 'round mine or even 'round Gigantor! What do ya wanna keep doing? Hidin' an' screwin' in the dark?! You want me just to keep bein' your little man whore?!"

"Sh!" Octavius quickly covers Jedediah's mouth, but his words have already stung him. He wonders where he picked up that phrase - just what movie Larry had been watching this time -, but that thought soon escapes him as he looks again into Jedediah's eyes. He's furious with him, but as usual, his anger is hiding the true hurt he feels.

"You are not," Octavius says firmly, dropping his hand with a look of shame momentarily creasing his dark brow, "a man whore, Jedediah!"

"Then what am I?" Jed demands. "Whaddya want me to be?"

"No more or less than who and what you are," Octavius replies, but it takes every bit of his courage to continue. This moment in their time together requires more bravado than facing the squirrel or the legions of the undead. It takes every ounce of courage, bravery, and self control, every inch of the other feeling to which he's never put a name aloud before, too, for him to say the next words, "The man I love." At some point, he had grabbed hold of Jedediah's hand. Now he lifts it to his lips and kisses his closed fingers without taking his eyes from his.

Jed smiles, and that trembling but happy smile makes everything they've ever survived entirely worth their travails to arrive at this moment together. "You mean it?" Jed asks. "You love me?"

"Yes! With all my heart, all my being, all my soul." He knows what they are saying now can never be repeated where others can hear them. He knows the dangers it would bring upon his beloved. He knows their own men might well try to kill them. But he'll explain that all to Jedediah later, as much later as is possible to put it off while still loving him and keeping him safe.

Jedediah's beaming now. "Ya ain't gotta wax poetical, Octie," he drawls and winks, "not that I mind hearin' it. I love you too, ya know, but I'd rather feel it."

"Feel my love, you shall, Jedediah, every night forever." He seals his vow with a kiss upon his lover's hot, upturned lips. He does love him with all his heart, and although there's no shame in being small or mannequins, Octavius still does not know rather it or not it should be shameful to love another man. What he does now, however, as he pulls Jed closer to him once more and covers his beautiful face, eyes, nose, and mouth with his lips is that, if it is shameful, he nonetheless wants to be wrapped fully in that shame throughout all the rest of their existence and he wants to spend every moment of that existence with the man he loves, making him smile, making him feel his love, fighting alongside him, and always, always loving him forever more.

The voice that booms throughout the museum next stills both men in horror. "Dum dums make love love."

They look at each other, wide eyed and terrified, until the museum breaks out in screeches and screams of approval and joyous applause. Octavius stops kissing Jedediah to smile at his love. "It would seem," he says cautiously, "that they approve."

"Yeah." Jed wriggles his broken nose at Octavius, yet another thing about himself over which, like being small, made of wax, and madly in love with his fellow man, he no longer feels any shame. He knows Octavius thinks his nose, with all its flaws, is cute, and that to him, makes it the second best nose ever - right underneath Octavius' own.

Octavius' nose rubs against Jed's as the blonde whispers, "Not that we need their approval."

"Of course not," Octavius quickly replies, and then he kisses him again and again throughout all the rest of their night spent together until they go, as dawn begins to crawl over their museum, back to their dioramas and the men they feared would destroy them for their love. They find their people waiting instead with open hands to clasp their hands and shoulders and grinning mouths. They've all been through too much to let a little thing like prejudice stop their feelings, rather it's love or friendship. Their men are still behind them; they always have been.

Jedediah and Octavius smile one last time for the night at each other before separating into their own dioramas. Jed folds his arms before his chest, turns to the rising sun, and faces it with a broad smile. He's never been happier that he doesn't live in his own time, isn't the man after whom he was made, and has people relying on him. He's never been happier about anything in all of his existence, and he's never been more in love or loved than he is in this very second as life leaves him, his lover, and their peoples again. It goes for the day, but they know it will return with the moon. It will return, and when it does, they'll love again, but even now, wherever their consciousness goes in the mean time, and for always after too, they love each other with a love more powerful than anything any one has ever endured, more powerful than their sizes or their times, more powerful than flesh or wax, more powerful than anything the world has ever known before or will again after except for the very truest of loves.

The End


End file.
